A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device, similar to a battery in that it provides continuous DC power, which converts the chemical energy from a fuel directly into electricity and heat. For example, one type of fuel cell includes a proton exchange membrane (PEM), often called a polymer electrolyte membrane, that permits only protons to pass from anode to cathode of the fuel cell. At the anode, diatomic hydrogen (a fuel) is reacted to produce protons that pass through the PEM. The electrons produced by this reaction travel through circuitry that is external to the fuel cell to form an electrical current. At the cathode, oxygen is reduced and reacts with the protons to form water. When operated directly on hydrogen, the fuel cell produces this energy with clean water as the only by-product. Unlike a battery, which is limited to the stored energy within, a fuel cell is capable of generating power as long as fuel is supplied continuously. Although hydrogen is the primary fuel source for fuel cells, the process of fuel reforming allows for the extraction of hydrogen from more widely available fuels such as natural gas and propane or any other hydrogen containing fuel. For a growing number of power generators and users, fuel cells are the key to the future since it is an environment-friendly power source with high energy conversion efficiency.
Among the fuel cells, a direct methanol fuel cell or so called DMFC is a promising candidate for portable applications in recently years. The difference between DMFC and other power generating devices, such as PEMFC, is that the DMFC takes methanol as fuel in substitution for hydrogen. Because of utilizing liquid methanol as fuel for reaction, the DMFC eliminates the on board H2 storage problem so that the risk of explosion in the use of fuel cells is avoided, which substantially enhances the convenience and safety of fuel cells and makes DMFC more adaptable to portable electronic appliances such as Laptop, PDA, GPS and etc, in the future.
During the electrochemical reaction occurred in the fuel cell, the fuel concentration is a vital parameter affecting the performance of the liquid feed fuel cell system. However, DMFC suffers from a problem that is well known to those skilled in the art: methanol cross-over from anode to cathode through the membrane of electrolyte, which causes significant loss in efficiency. It is important to regulate the supplying of fuel appropriately to keep methanol concentration in a predetermined range whereby DMFCs system can operate optimally. For example, a fuel sensor, such as methanol concentration sensor disclosed in the prior art, is utilized to detect the concentration of methanol so as to provide information for controlling system to judge a suitable timing to supply methanol. Although the foregoing method is capable of controlling the concentration of the fuel, it still has the drawbacks as following: (1) the complexity and cost of the fuel cell system are increased; (2) considering the aging of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) of the fuel cell, the fuel concentration sensor used therein will have to be calibrated in a regular base for maintaining a specific level of accuracy so that a lot of experimental effort like calibration is necessary through the use of concentration sensor. Moreover, the control complexity of the fuel cell using fuel concentration sensor is increased as the measurement of the fuel concentration sensor can be easily affected by temperature variation.
In order to reduce the cost and complexity caused by the additional concentration sensor in the prior arts, a couple of fuel sensor-less control for DMFCs approaches have been disclosed to decrease the cost and complexity of the fuel cells system and improve the stability of fuel cell operation by monitoring one or more of the fuel cells' operating characteristics. For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,824,899, a method is provided to optimize the fuel concentration by detecting the short circuit current or open circuit potential. However, since the method requires to short circuit the fuel cell in periodical manner for current detection, it is easily to cause damage to the fuel cells and thus affects the stability and lifespan of the fuel cells system.
According to the drawbacks of the prior arts described above, it deserves to provide a method for supplying fuel to fuel cells to solve the problem of the prior arts.